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Monday, September 12, 2011

My old EMT instructors.

The other night in the ER, I had to duck into the paramedic's room to restock some meds. There was a bunch of them in there and one of them was an instructor from my EMT class. He doesn't remember me because it has been a few years and many students since I had seen him but I sure remember him. He was one of those who struck terror in the students.

All of our instructors were full time firefighters that were working this gig on the side. We had two that were our main teachers and the others would come in periodically for our hands on training. He was one for the hands on training. He had ZERO tolerance for any errors. Today I understand his reasons because a person's life is in your hands but the way he went about it I disagreed with. He was strict and intimidating. And when he corrected you it was in a brash and crude manner like you were a two year old.

He was so bad that our ace student actually failed a practical exercise during mid-terms because he was so flustered and nervous. The whole class and even our main teachers were stunned when that happened. This ace student knew everything because his father and two brothers were firefighters and paramedics.

For mid-term and finals we had a written test and a round robin of several exercises. All of the instructors were on hand and each student would be in a room one on one with an instructor for each exercise. We were all praying that we would not get him. I got him for mid-term and not finals.

Funny thing is that I passed, barely, the mid-term thing with him. What flustered me more was one of the exercises on my final. I you recall an earlier post, Speechless, then you will know what I am talking about. The one hot firefighter instructor and I get paired with him. At the end of the exercise he gives me a funny look and my heart drops to the pit of my stomach. I have done something wrong.

While I was waiting for the test results I realized what I had done wrong. I have made a fatal error on that exercise. I am too embarrassed to tell you what it is but is something so simply stupid as putting your finger in a hole type of thing. Everyone in my group was surprised that I had failed it because I knew it to a tee but I knew why.

With the way the rules are set up I have one chance to take the test again. When I walked back into the room I just ignored him and was looking down at the floor and went through everything step by step and passed with a 100%. Now he looked at me even more funny.

After everything was done my main instructor asked me what happened. I explained to him that I was nervous about finals and just had a huge brain fart. He laughed and said that other than that I passed everything with a perfect score. Should have told him not to pair me with a hunk for the test but then it was better then the tyrant!